Twenty Three Shades of Gray
by Thinker6
Summary: Taylor Hebert triggers with Gray Boy's power. She reunites with Emma Barnes in the aftermath of an Endbringer attack. The two old friends and old enemies have to come to terms with their new relationship.
1. Chapter 1

"Loser."

Emma Barnes scowled at Taylor's empty seat, then turned to page 242 of her book. _Parahuman's Progress: A History of Capes_ , the chapter on the Endbringer Truce.

 _Though there had been prior instances of hero-villain cooperation - most notably the doomed last stand of Sao Paulo - the first formal truce was ratified on January 23, 1994, when the United States Congress passed the Preservation Act. Villains who fought against Endbringers would be offered temporary immunity from arrest, guaranteed anonymity, and generous life insurance and funds for medical treatment._

 _The truce paid immediate dividends. On March 26, 1994, Behemoth emerged from the earth six miles west of New York City. Local villains and rogues immediately swung into action. Armillary, Belobog, and Tiburon Blanco led their teams in a coordinated effort alongside the Protectorate's elite to stall Behemoth's advance for more than an hour until the bulk of hero forces arrived on the scene-_

Emma set the book aside with a sigh. She didn't have the heart to keep reading. It was depressingly relevant to her current predicament.

She gazed out the window. A bare glimmer of sunlight trickled in through a narrow gap at the top of the window. The rest of the view was blocked by a massive pile of flooded rubble, shattered brick walls and twisted steel support beams.

Leviathan's work. Winslow High School had been crushed. She and her classmates were trapped inside with no way to contact the outside world.

The bright side was that she was alive. Her eyes drifted to the seat of the girl who had protected her. The girl who had saved everyone in the class from certain death.

"Loser." Emma scowled at Taylor's empty seat, then turned to page 243 of her book.

A hand tapped her on the shoulder. A familiar touch. Emma spoke without looking up. "Sophia. What's up?"

"How long has it been? Four days? A week?"

Emma shook her head. "Only two."

"You're bullshitting me. Two days?"

"Two sunsets and two sunrises since we heard from the...loser."

Emma scowled at Taylor's empty seat. Sophia was already there, standing with her hand on the back of Taylor's chair.

"Two fucking days. _Fuck_." Sophia swore with relish. As if she was glad she had something to piss her off. "It'll take those idiots in the PRT a _week_ to get their shit together after Leviathan. Already feels like a fucking eternity."

Sophia moved so fast it was a blur. A single smooth movement to pick up the chair, phase into shadow, and hurl the chair into the desk. The chair phased back into existence embedded inside the desk, and the mangled furniture toppled to the floor with a crash.

A pointless mess. But the rest of the class wasn't paying attention to Sophia's antics. They were crowding around the windows.

A cheer went up. Twenty one voices exultant.

Taylor was back.

"Los-" Emma bit back her insult. She felt her scowl give way to a smile. It made her feel weak but she couldn't help it. She was happy to see her former best friend, if only because it meant they were in contact with the outside world again.

Taylor climbed in through the window, opened by Greg and Sparky working together. _Lumiere_ , as the capes were calling her these days. She pulled in a bulky backpack behind her, filled with supplies to tide the class over until the relief crews did their work and cleaned up the wreckage of the rest of the school.

Taylor looked the same as she always did, now. Faded jeans with a rip below the right knee, a long-sleeved tee shirt that was a touch too large for her bony frame, her curly dark hair trailing halfway down her back.

All in shades of gray.

Taylor swept her gaze over the class. For a moment she seemed to split, two versions of herself looking in different directions, until one of the two Taylors flickered and disappeared. Her power had activated in response to something it perceived as damage and restored her to an earlier state. A reflex that was triggered by as little as the pressure of her hand brushing against an obstacle, or a papercut on her finger, or a speck of dirt sticking to the treads of her sneakers.

"What happened? Did you beat Leviathan?" said Greg. Emma suppressed a wince. The geek was eager as a puppy. Taylor's biggest fanboy.

Taylor didn't return his enthusiasm. She must have been dreading the question. She sagged and spoke in a defeated voice.

"I...I'm sorry. I couldn't stop Leviathan."

Taylor hesitated, her eyes downcast. When she finally spoke, her words came spilling out in a torrent. "I tried, I swear I tried. I can only trap whole objects and he's too big to fit in a gray zone. I tried to pin him with zones around his body but he was too fast. It would have taken four or five to pin him, the best I could get was two before he slipped away. The other capes tried to hold him still for me but they kept getting killed, and he kept killing me, and...and then he...he almost tricked me into trapping Alexandria."

Taylor chewed her lip. Her power immediately reset her to undo the miniscule damage to her body. "I gave up on trapping him and tried to protect people. I made barriers to stop the waves, but..."

She chewed her lip again. Her power reset her again. A nervous habit. "...the heroes told me to leave. They said I was doing more harm than good. The streets I gray zoned are off limits forever, they said it's better to let Leviathan trash them and rebuild them later. So I...I stopped using my power. I stayed and helped evac a few capes, gave them medical attention. Resuscitated a hero who took a hit-"

Emma caught her choice of words. _The heroes_ told her to leave. Taylor didn't consider herself one of them, a hero, even after all she'd done.

Taylor bowed her head. "I'm sorry. I promised you I'd make a difference, and all I did was make things worse."

A tear ran down Taylor's cheek. It made it half an inch before her body reset.

A hubbub of voices filled the air. Some comforting her, some angry, others pressing her for more news. One voice was louder than the others. Julia Schwartz asking about her parents.

"I'm sorry." said Taylor, raising her voice to be heard. "They don't have a list of casualties yet. I protected the shelters with my power but I didn't have time to get them all, and I had to leave empty holes for the doors, and...not everyone made it."

She took a folder out of her backpack and withdrew a stack of envelopes with names hand-written in pen. "I made these. One envelope per person with the status of your relatives. Alive, wounded, dead, or unknown. You can open it or not, whichever you want. Those of you who lost someone...I'm sorry. I'm sorry I couldn't protect them as well as you."

Emma stared at the envelopes in her former friend's hand, then found her eyes drawn to the window. Outside, where her family was waiting for her. Mom and Dad, and her sister Zoe back from college for the summer.

She wanted to go to her family, to rush to their side and hold them tight and feel their warm touch again. It would only be the work of a minute to start. Climb out the window, clamber over the rubble, and slog through the flooded streets to find whoever was in charge of what was left of the city.

She wanted to go to her family, but she didn't know where she'd find them. Home...or in a refugee camp...or ailing in a hospital bed...or dead and drowned in a flooded shelter...or nowhere at all, missing without a trace.

She wanted to go to her family...but she knew it was impossible. There was an unbreakable wall in the way.

The world outside was gray. Though, to the rest of the world...

... _they_ were the gray ones.

"Loser." Emma scowled at Taylor's empty seat.

It had been this way ever since the day they had pushed Taylor too far. Taylor had gotten her power, then, and in her panic and humiliation she'd cast the classroom around her into a gray zone of eternally repeating time. A zone she had proven completely unable to dispel.

Forty two seconds, now. Every forty two seconds Emma found herself returned to the state she had been in when she'd given Taylor the final push off the edge. Forty two seconds, hour after hour, day after day, wearing grooves in her mind until she _thought_ in forty two second cycles, _dreamed_ in forty two second cycles, her sleeping mind's fantasies guided by the repeating sensation of her body being reset again and again and again.

"Loser." Emma scowled at Taylor's empty seat.

Forty two seconds was a luxury. It was enough time for her to open her book to a page and read a few sentences before she was reset.

Much better than the first month, when the loop had been eight seconds. _Much_ better than the first ten days in the loop, before Taylor learned that she could lengthen it. It had been zero point six six seconds, then. Six hundred and sixty milliseconds. She'd had to communicate with blinks and eye movements aimed at the cameras outside.

The experts said Taylor's ability to extend the loop was tapering off. Rather than growing indefinitely it was slowly approaching a fixed plateau. All efforts to enhance Taylor's power to help her end or extend the loop had failed. Her power rejected anything that would change her, even if it was an enhancement.

"Loser." Emma scowled at Taylor's empty seat.

Taylor was the only one who could enter the loop and make changes that stuck. There was never any waste. The meals she brought for them on Monday left in the same untouched condition when she took them back out on Tuesday, even if they'd savored the first bite a hundred times.

She had tried to pull _them_ out of the loop too, but her power refused to release living beings from the loops. The PRT called it a 'Manton limitation'. The same reason her power refused to let Taylor release herself from her own personal loop that protected her from injury.

"Loser." Emma scowled at Taylor's empty seat.

 _Loser_. That insult was Emma's personal cross to bear. She couldn't stop herself from speaking the curse that had pushed Taylor over the edge and doomed them all.

The others shunned Emma. Only Sophia, Madison, Julia, and Tim would talk to her in more than a few grumbled words. The rest of them called her 'Loser Girl'. For the word that defined her now. The word she'd spoken hundreds of thousands of times, the word she forced onto everyone around her with ears to hear it, day after day after day.

"Loser."

"Loser."

"Loser."

"Loser."

"Loser."

Emma considered herself lucky. It could have been worse.

Chandra had the misfortune to be looped at the precise moment her too-tight underwear rode up her ass. She'd had to experience that supremely uncomfortable sensation every six hundred and sixty milliseconds, twenty four hours a day, again and again and again. Without an instant of relief, without regard for her feelings, without regard to whether she was asleep or awake...

After a week Taylor had realized she could move objects inside the loop and saved her, but by that time Chandra had cracked.

Chandra was doing much better, now. She didn't scream anymore, her tics were less noticeable, and she only had her panic attacks every couple of days.

Then there were the less fortunate ones. The ones Taylor couldn't help. Shin had a splitting headache. Sparky had to pee. Serena had a cramp from her period. Again and again and again.

"Loser." Emma scowled at Taylor's empty seat.

Yes, she was one of the lucky ones. She wasn't sick, or in pain, or even uncomfortable in her seat. Her mom and dad visited her twice a day, and her sister Anne came with them when she wasn't away at college. They brought her books and music and made sure she kept up on her studies.

Most of all, they gave her a reason to live, a reason to look forward to the future. They insisted on planning for the day the PRT found a way to free her. Even after the Protectorate's best had failed they never once wavered in their confidence that the heroes would succeed.

Her family's relentless optimism was probably an act for her sake, but she didn't care. Next to the oppressive cabin fever of the classroom it was a breath of fresh air. Knowing her mom and dad were coming gave her an excuse to keep herself sane and presentable. For the sake of her pride, and the sake of her family's smiles.

As things were, she only had three things left to live for. Her pride and her family were two. Her other _raison de vivre_ was...harder to satisfy. She'd have to deal with it today. Nudge things in the right direction.

"Loser." Emma scowled at Taylor's empty seat.

The people who didn't have any support, any goals to live for...they simply _dissolved_. Everyone had snapped at one time or another. The benign ones spent days in an unresponsive trance, or muttering incoherently, or making useless repetitive movements in search of stimulation, rocking or pacing or stabbing themselves with scissors.

The troublesome ones fell to urges to satisfy their baser desires. For a while they'd had a miniature Lord of the Flies scenario on their hands, until Sophia made it clear that she'd kill the fuck out of the troublemakers as many times as it took to make them behave.

The next trouble on the horizon was going to be Sophia. They were all restless, stir-crazy, and Emma's friend had the worst of it. Sophia's most recent ploy to relieve her cabin fever was organizing a recreational fight club. An extreme sport with no holds barred, a game the class was uniquely qualified to play since they could recover from any injury up to and including death.

No one was passionate about the fight club like Sophia was, but Emma made sure to act the part of an eager participant. She'd nudged Madison and Tim into taking part as well. When Sophia snapped again - and it was a _when_ not an if - it was going to be ugly. She wanted to be on her good side.

"Loser." Emma scowled at Taylor's empty seat.

So many social games to play, even sealed in a room with the same twenty two people day after day. If you knew how to play you'd never get bored. And Emma absolutely _refused_ to be bored. She needed the distraction. Without her social games _she'd_ be the next to have a psychotic break. And she refused to be the next to break.

Sartre had said it best. Hell is other people. Thus, as one who had been cast into hell...other people were her only pleasure.

"Loser." Emma scowled at Taylor's empty seat.

Taylor began her daily circuit of the room. She stopped at every seat and delivered a small parcel with each student's mail, supplies, and rations. Then Taylor had a conversation with the student in quiet tones. Taking their requests and writing down any messages they wanted to send to the outside. Today she also gave them the special envelopes she had prepared, the ones with news of how their families had fared in the Endbringer attack.

Emma kept a close watch. Alert for hints of her classmates changing their routines or developing new ambitions.

Shin asked for an order of Thai food, going into obsessive detail about the side dishes. No surprise. Food and drink were popular favorites. They were also a good way to predict a classmate's mental state. People who suddenly demanded sweets and fatty food were on the edge of a breakdown. They'd spend the next week retreating from the world by stuffing their faces twenty four hours a day. Shin managed to be dignified about it. He was taking a journey through the menus of every Asian restaurant in the city, one order per day.

Chandra asked for books. Another source of insight into a classmate's character. Chandra liked books about motherhood. From what she'd babbled in one of her panic attacks, Emma gathered that she'd wanted to get pregnant with her boyfriend against the wishes of her parents. Now she was learning to cope with the fact that she'd never have children.

Sparky asked for another mod for his drum set. Emma's eye twitched. Asshole. If the stoner kept up his ear-raping attempts at music for one second longer than his agreed-upon daily playing time, she was going to stab him through the eyeballs with her pens again. As many times as it took for him to get the message.

Greg asked Taylor to load a save state onto his gaming rig. The geek was attempting a world record run of Super Meat Boy, advancing through the levels forty two seconds per day. Emma had to admit the game had a certain ironic appeal...

"Loser." Emma scowled at Taylor's empty seat.

Madison accepted her weekly stack of teen magazines and had Taylor take her dictation of the next three paragraphs of the article she was composing. A write-in submission to her favorite mag, tentatively titled _Sweet Sixteen Forever_. She was hoping to get on the cover.

Emma smiled. She'd given her friend the idea. She doubted they'd print Madison's story - the mags were in the business of selling celebrity culture and tips to one-up your peers, not sob stories, no matter how 'inspirational'. It would clash with the mood they wanted to instill in their audience. Besides, they'd never print a black-and-white cover. But it gave her friend a distraction from her imprisonment. She hadn't had one of her fits for a week.

"Loser." Emma scowled at Taylor's empty seat.

Sophia didn't ask Taylor for anything. Instead she gave Taylor an earful. A convoluted discussion about cape powers and Endbringer fights. Sophia played the part of a seasoned veteran. She made Taylor recount the battle in exacting detail - even more detail than fanboy Greg had - and lectured her about proper tactics. Ha. As if Sophia was an expert. All she'd done was search-and-rescue during a Behemoth fight. Taylor had been in the thick of the action.

Emma didn't care about cape minutae anymore, but she paid attention for the sake of her friend. It would give them something new to talk about later, a few hours of time well spent. A rare commodity in their frozen world.

Then it was Emma's turn. She took a slow breath to steady her nerves. She raised her head to meet the eyes of her oldest friend, and oldest enemy...


	2. Chapter 2

"Emma."

"Taylor."

Taylor wordlessly slid her envelope onto Emma's desk. She didn't meet her eyes.

"You're not going to - loser - ask me how I'm holding up?" said Emma. "Endbringer attack and all."

"I didn't want to bother you, and..." Taylor trailed off. "I thought you'd want to look at your envelope first."

Emma's heart skipped a beat. She refused to let it show. "I'll look at it later. Did your dad make it out okay?"

"Yeah." Taylor didn't elaborate. Guilty that her father got VIP treatment from the PRT.

"That's wonderful, Taylor." said Emma, flashing her best smile. "I'm so glad. How about your house?"

"Mostly fine. The fence is gone, and there's some crap the waves dragged into the yard, but otherwise fine. Yours too. Your basement's probably flooded though."

"Oh. Good. Not that I can go home."

Taylor flinched. She chewed her lip and her power reset her body. A moment passed in silence.

Emma cleared her throat. "Can I take a seat next to the - loser - window? I want to watch the cleanup crews. Make it easier to talk to my family when they come by."

"It's Julia's turn for a window seat. Your turn is tomor-"

"I missed my turn yesterday. You didn't come." Emma chewed at her lip, a mirror of Taylor's tic. "I was afraid you'd died. That the Endbringer killed you. That you'd broken your promise and left us alone in here forever."

Taylor lowered her eyes. "I'm sorry. I was doing relief work. Digging people out of rubble, flooded buildings, stuff like that. You guys were safe here, so I-"

"No, I get it. You don't have to pretend. _I'm_ sorry. You're still holding that against me. Still. After what we've been through since then. I know it's not my place to - loser - say, but I'd like to think this is enough punishment."

Taylor shook her head, but she was silent. She didn't deny it. _'I don't hate you.' 'I don't resent you.' 'After what I did to you, I forgive you.'You can't say it, can you Taylor? You know the words on your tongue will ring false the minute you let them past your lips._

"I'm not asking for much. A place to talk to Mom and Dad when they come for me. Please, Taylor."

Taylor glanced at Julia. The girl's nose was in a book, pointedly ignoring the two of them. "...Okay, Emma. You get the window seat today. Hold still."

Taylor's touch was electric on her skin. Not due to her power. An emotional reaction. The twenty three students could touch each other in any way they wished, free to act out their forty two second dreams no matter how wild or bizarre, but the consequences were erased as if they had never been. Only Taylor's touch was _real_ , now.

Taylor put one hand on Emma's shoulder and the other hand on the back of her chair. She gently pushed her across the floor in her chair, the worn metal legs scraping against the floor. A second trip and she moved the desk to join her. Then Taylor put one hand on each side of Emma's temples and gently rotated her head on her neck to tilt slightly downward, a better posture for reading her books. A tender gesture, like a mother comforting her child.

Emma felt her heart beating madly in her chest. She took a slow, deep breath. _Can't let her get to me like this._ If she wasn't careful she'd be stuck like this. Resetting into a state of high physiological arousal, heart racing and blood pumping and eyes wide open, every forty two seconds until the next time Taylor touched her.

"Perfect." said Emma. "My books, can you - loser - do the flippy thing?" She made a flip-flopping gesture with her hands.

Taylor arranged Emma's books to put them side by side on her desk. Then she carefully timed her movements to the time loop's resets, holding each book open and splaying its pages. When she was finished, all of the books were being reset into a state where their pages were open and fluttering as if a girl was flippiing through them. It would save Emma time, letting her reach the page of her choice in two seconds instead of eight.

"Better?" said Taylor.

Emma looked out the window. Through a gap in the rubble she got her first look at the collapsed and flooded buildings around the school. It was as bad as the others had said, but somehow it didn't trouble her. After months of the same scenery day after day, the change of pace was refreshing.

It was time for the coup de grace. Emma nodded and licked her lips.

"Thank you." she said. A finely calibrated whisper, just loud enough for Taylor to hear.

Taylor's reaction was as sure as it was subtle. Her eyes went wide, her nostrils flared, and her head shook fractionally side to side as if to deny what she'd heard.

It wasn't much, but it was enough.

The first time Taylor had extended the time loop, from six hundred sixty milliseconds to eight seconds, she'd called Emma a bully and demanded that she apologize for her misdeeds. Emma had fallen apart. Panicked, desperate, completely out of her mind. She'd collapsed to the floor, hugging the solid ground like a child clutching at her mother, the first touch she'd felt in ten days. And she'd apologized over and over, crying pathetically, her tears resetting every eight seconds. She'd choked on her involuntary "loser"s and scowls and driven herself further into panic, terrified that she would drive Taylor away again. She'd made wild pleas and promises and thanked her like a supplicant prostrating herself before a goddess...

Taylor had taken one look at her and cried too. She'd told Emma not to thank her. That she didn't deserve thanks after what she'd done to her. She'd promised to save Emma, to save them all. And if she couldn't save them, then she'd promised to take care of them as best she could, even if she had to devote her life to the task.

Emma held her to that promise. But once in a while, when Taylor had missed a day, when the look on her face grew distant...Emma _thanked_ her, again. Reminding Taylor of the magnitude of her crime. That she'd reduced her old bully and best friend to a gray shade of her former self, trapped in an eternal hell, pathetically grateful for a few seconds of her touch.

Emma didn't do it for revenge. Nothing so petty. It was for _everyone's_ sake. For the twenty three shades of gray in the classroom. It was to make sure that Taylor kept her promise.

They could all see it. Taylor was growing more distant. After the accident their tormentor had tearfully apologized and promised to come every day to take care of them. Heartfelt promises that should have lasted a lifetime.

But Taylor didn't _have_ to come back. There was no law saying she had to. With the work the heroes had her doing, traveling around the world with the big-name heroes to help them take down the worst threats, she always had an excuse. Her excuses were getting bigger, coming more frequently. Three days spent containing a classified threat in Pakistan. Full weeks spent trying to put down Ash Beast and the Blasphemies. Meanwhile her classmates slowly deteriorated, their quirks and fits and nervous breakdowns grew worse with every missed day of physical contact with the outside world.

It was only a matter of time before Taylor's superiors decided that she shouldn't be tied to Brockton Bay. That her time was better spent fighting their battles around the world than in giving comfort to the twenty three classmates she'd damned to hell. They'd pressure her, _order_ her, feed her pleasant lies and platitudes about the _greater good_.

And Taylor would buy it, hook line and sinker. Her superiors had all the time in the world to convince her. Her classmates only had the hour or two a day she spent with them. And Taylor was ridiculously moral to a fault. The _special_ kind of moral, the kind of person who was eager to sacrifice herself because she was convinced she had no worth of her own, who would lie and use dirty tricks and break her own promises for the sake of the 'greater good'.

It was inevitable. One day Taylor would abandon them to eternal torment and convince herself that it was all for the best. Convince herself that a few pricks on her conscience and a few sleepless nights was atonement enough. That would be that.

And the only person who could stave off the inevitable...was Emma.

They all knew it. Taylor had never _cared_ about the others. She'd always kept to herself, seen her classmates as faceless figures to be ignored or avoided. She only came back to them out of a sense of duty.

Emma was the only one of them who had a genuine emotional connection with Taylor. She'd captured her heart for years. First as her best friend, and then as her worst enemy. She'd been the sole target of her attention, occupied her mind when she was awake and haunted her dreams when she was asleep.

Yes. Emma knew she was the only one who truly _understood_ Taylor. No matter how much her classmates hated her, they all knew it was true. The task fell to her. It was her duty to fight for all of their sakes.

And so, when Emma saw Taylor react to her prodding, saw her eyes widen and nostrils flare and her teeth bite at her lip hard enough for her power to reset her body...she felt her heart leap. She'd bought her class more time. Taylor wouldn't miss a day for a week, maybe even a _month_.

"I told you not to thank me." Taylor muttered under her breath. Then, with a visible effort, she made herself meet Emma's eyes. "You're welcome."

Emma nodded encouragingly, but Taylor didn't say anything more. An awkward silence hung in the air. As usual. Taylor would be civil with her but she wouldn't take the initiative. Overly polite, not speaking unless spoken to.

Emma understood why. In a twisted way, Taylor felt more guilty about _her_ than anyone else. Their classmates were a tragedy but they had been accidents. Collateral damage. Emma, though...in the moment Taylor had received her power, she'd _meant_ to hurt her.

That was why Taylor ruthlessly quashed her feelings. Taylor refused to let herself feel even a hint of anger or frustration at Emma. She'd given in to those feelings just once, and her moment of weakness had condemned twenty three young men and women to a living hell. She wouldn't let it happen a second time.

Emma _understood_ that. Respected it, even. Taylor had seen her life go to hell in a moment of weakness, so she refused to be weak ever again. Sworn to be a stronger person, even if it meant coming back to the scene of her weakness and confronting the very people she'd condemned to hell.

It had been the same for her and Sophia, before, after the alleyway. Now Taylor was following the same path, as a direct result of her actions.

It made Emma feel a sense of _responsibility_ for Taylor, that she hadn't felt since they had been best friends what seemed like a lifetime ago. She'd made Taylor like this. That meant Taylor was her responsibility. Her...protege, of a sort. Emma couldn't touch the world outside her prison, couldn't affect it except in a few very limited ways, but Taylor would be her legacy to the world.

That meant she had one task left to do.

"Hey, Taylor." Emma grabbed her by the sleeve of her shirt, stopping her from moving to the next desk. Taylor turned, her eyes downcast.

"You really think you didn't make a difference?"

"A difference?"

"Out there. Against - loser - Leviathan."

Now Taylor raised her eyes. "I was supposed to be the difference. That's what one of the men who trained me called me. Lumiere the difference maker. Gray zones an Endbringer can't break, in unlimited numbers with perfect targeting, a new zone every few seconds. They trained me for weeks. But I...I couldn't. I couldn't stop him. Could hardly slow him down for five minutes, ten minutes. Couldn't-"

"Don't give me that crap." snapped Emma. "I've been reading up on Endbringer attacks. I bet most of the - loser - capes went out in their fancy costumes and did nothing but get stomped. There were what, a hundred and fifty capes out there? How many slowed him down for more than a minute? Ten capes? Five?"

"Um. Six...no, wait. Seven. Alexandria, Legend, um-"

Emma waved her off. "Don't worry about the number. How many slowed him down as much as _you_ did? Five or ten minutes."

Taylor paused, remembering. "Eidolon. Um. Alexandria, if you add up all the times she hit him. The team from the Guild, they had a tinker machine that they used with their forcefields to-"

"They're a team. So the answer is _two_. Two single capes did as well as you, and they're part of the freaking Triumvirate. You had them on your - loser - lunchbox when you were a kid. Now you're angsting out that you're _only_ as good as them. You know, I..." _I used to call you lame and depressing. I was right._ "...think you're overdue for a look in the fucking mirror."

"It's not like that! With this power I'm supposed to do better. The others hurt him, they made him leave the city sooner. I couldn't hurt him at all, only trap him, and I couldn't even do that right! I wasted our time. Kept him in the city longer while he sent in his waves. Heroes died trying to hold him for me!"

"You did better than most. You didn't hurt him, but you distracted him so the other heroes could." _The_ other _heroes. You hear that, Taylor? You're one too._. "You saved heroes. Shielded them, pulled them out of the water."

Taylor looked down and chewed her lip. Her power reset her body.

"You resuscitated a hero. You know his name?"

"He's, uh...Chubster."

Emma snickered. "For real? How old is the - loser - hero? A kid? A family man?"

"I don't know. He looked thirty five or forty."

"A grown man. Then there's a - oh god. Wait. Mouth to mouth. Was he your first kiss, Taylor?"

Taylor blushed. As much as she could blush. Her cheeks turned a darker shade of gray. After a few seconds her power came to her rescue and reset her body.

Emma smirked. "Then there's a chubby little man who's going back to his family because you gave him the kiss of life. A chubby wife and two point four chubby kids somewhere owe you a big fucking thank you. And a party with cake. _All_ the parties."

"I'm pretty sure heroes don't work like that, Emma."

"Well they should. You saved his life. They owe you parties. At _least_. A party every anniversary of the day you saved him." Emma jabbed her in the arm with a finger. "Sophia saved my life and I became her friend, went on patrol with her, testified to get her in the Wards, the whole nine yards. The way you're talking you - loser - don't expect as much as a thank you card. You know what you should do? Show up on their doorstep a year from now, shouting 'Where's my party, Chubster? Where's my fucking party?'"

"You're, uh, you're acting weird, Emma. You said I should tell you if you're acting weird, if the loops are-"

"The loops aren't getting to me, st-" _Stupid_ , "silly. _You're_ the one who's acting weird. Being a hero and not calling yourself one. Stopping Leviathan as well as the Triumvirate and complaining you didn't do better. It pisses me off, to see someone strong who thinks and acts like she's a - loser."

Emma raised her book and waved it in the air. "I've been reading up on Endbringers. You'll do better next time. You learned Leviathan's tricks, you'll come up with a better plan for next time. Behemoth is a slowpoke. Easy to trap, if you don't blind yourself with tears of angst."

Taylor took a step backward. She didn't know how to process what she was hearing. "I...I have been thinking of plans. Making little gray zones a few inches wide. I can make them faster than big ones, and they can't trap people by accident, and they'll stop an Endbringer's charge just as well. But...I _promised_. I promised you I'd stop anything that attacked you, even an Endbringer. I promised all of you. They all said I could do it, I was supposed to-"

"Yeah, and if anyone here is mad you didn't 'redeem' yourself for what you did to them, screw them. Don't listen to those - loser - idiots. They're wrong." Emma caught sight of Taylor's expression and almost laughed. "Hey, what's up with that look? You can trust me on this, Taylor. I gave you nothing but crap for years. So when _I_ say you did good, you damn well better believe it."

Emma gave her a lopsided smile and patted her on the hand.

Taylor went very still. For a solid minute she stared at Emma's hand on hers like it was a viper about to bare its fangs and inject its venom. She tried to steady her nerves. Clenched and unclenched her fists, closed her eyes, took a deep breath. Finally, she nerved herself to speak.

"T-thank you Emma. That was...nice of you."

Her tone was sincere, even sweet. Though Taylor couldn't entirely mask her distrust. Her mouth was a thin, hard line. _'Thank you, Emma, even if it is probably an underhanded trick'_.

Emma airily waved a hand. "It was nothing. I couldn't bear seeing you - loser - drown yourself in tears for no reason at all."

It was true. In a twisted way, Taylor was her legacy to the world. She'd shaped her as her best friend. Then she'd shaped her as her worst enemy. She'd been the one who gave her powers. Now she had the opportunity to shape her once again, in a way that would touch the lives of thousands, of all the lives a world-class hero touched. Emma wasn't going to let it go to waste. Making Taylor - _Lumiere_ \- into a success story was a matter of pride.

"Seriously, take a look at yourself." said Emma. "You get to rub shoulders with _Alexandria_ and travel the world every week righting wrongs. That was your dream since we were in fourth grade. Now you're _living_ the dream, and you're - loser - immortal and invincible so it's not going to end anytime soon. Cheer the hell up. You'll do better with a smile."

Emma gave Taylor a wide-angled grin. The corners of Taylor's mouth twitched upward, the ghost of a smile. A sympathetic reaction. She couldn't help it even if the smile was on the face of her worst enemy.

"I'll, I'll try." said Taylor. "If this is a dream, it doesn't feel like a good one. But it's not a nightmare. Not like it used to be. You're right about that. Thanks."

"Anytime. Come back any time, Taylor." said Emma with a gentle smile. _I'll always be here for you_ , she almost added. She caught the subtle guilt trip and quashed the words before they left her lips. This was no time to go back to old habits. She wanted Taylor to leave with a smile.

Taylor nodded. "I'll be back." Then she was gone, moving on to the next of her classmates.

Emma picked up the envelope Taylor had left on her desk. She considered opening it for a moment, then set it aside. She didn't want to let Taylor see her in a moment of vulnerability. Either her parents were alive, or they were dead. There would be time to deal with that later. She would wait for her classmates to open their envelopes, keep a clear mind while she observed and catalogued their reactions, before she took the plunge.

"Loser." Emma scowled at Taylor's empty seat.

Patience. That was a virtue she had learned in her long months trapped in the frozen world of gray. Maybe the experts were right, and they were trapped here forever. Or maybe the Protectorate would find an answer and set them free. Either way, patience was key.

If she fixated on the chance of escape, spent twenty four long hours every day doing nothing but pining for freedom, she'd lose her mind and go mad. As too many of her classmates did, in their periodic vacations from sanity. _Lame and depressing_ , indeed.

She refused to let herself go down that path. She'd learned to find purpose and meaning in this small piece of the world that was open to her. Not an easy task. All too much time on her hands, all too little stimulation with which to occupy it. An unchanging cast of twenty two classmates whose company got excruciatingly grating before the first month was out.

"Loser." Emma scowled at Taylor's empty seat.

She'd turned to her one remaining outlet: the outside world. Her actions in the gray world were erased after forty two seconds. Only her actions that affected the outside world would last. Only the outside world was truly _real_.

Emma had decided to become a writer. They'd been setting up an interface before they were interrupted by Leviathan's attack. Computers rigged up just outside the gray zone with voice recognition programs to let them could control them by talking. Taylor would put her next to the window, and she would read and write to her heart's content. Twenty four hours a day, if she felt like it.

She'd already decided on her first book. It would be her autobiography. _Twenty Three Shades of Gray_.

It was a calculated gamble. To the public she was a dyed in the wool villain. The queen bitch of a bully who pushed Taylor Hebert too far and got her class condemned to hell. No one would believe a word she wrote unless she went through the socially demanded song and dance of absolution. It stung her pride to do it but she didn't have a choice.

So she'd tell the truth, after a fashion. She'd give the public exactly what they wanted. A story of sin and sinner. A victimizer and a victim, down to earth and yet larger than life. The best friend you could ever hope to have, and the cruelest enemy you could ever fear to cross. A flawed human being who learned her lesson too late for salvation and was damned for her sins. Who had the courage to send a message from the depths of hell, to plead with the living not to repeat her mistakes.

Were you ever bullied in school? You'd read it, for the catharsis from a bully learning her lesson, from her getting the most insanely over the top punishment ever devised. Were you a bully yourself? You'd read it to breathe a sigh of relief for the damnation you'd avoided, or to learn from the bully's mistakes so you wouldn't get caught in the same way by your prey. Were you a teacher, a psychlogist, a parahuman enthusiast, a parahuman yourself? Were you a fan of tales of true crime, of revenge, of redemption, of inspirational true stories? Were you a Brocktonite who'd heard of the infamous frozen classroom but never got up the nerve to visit? Were you saved by Lumiere on her journeys around the globe, or did you know someone she'd saved?

It would be a best seller. The public and the critics alike would flock to read it for its sensationalism alone. A book in shades of gray, with an emotional recommendation written by Lumiere herself on the back cover, with a pledge to donate the proceeds to non-profit organizations for fighting gang violence and school bullying.

"Loser." Emma scowled at Taylor's empty seat.

If she did it right, she'd get a wide reader base for the books she wanted to write next. She'd always wanted to be a fashion model - she'd _been_ a fashion model, a small-timer. Now she would settle for the literary equivalent of fashion, the style of fiction that drew on the same talents. Stories whose appeal lay as much in their style as their substance, stories that sold because of the author's talent at anticipating popular culture trends. Capturing the reader's fascination by expertly toeing the line between tasteful and tasteless, sensational and scanadlous, chic and avant-garde.

She had already gotten the inspiration for her first book of fiction from her favorite series of romance novels. She would take the harsh extremes of reward and punishment she'd discovered in the world of capes and translate them into the realm of romance. Most capes were too guarded about their secret identities to speak openly about their romantic lives, so she wouldn't have much competition. It would be a larger-than-life story, so maybe she should double the number in the title? _Forty Six Shades of Gray_? No, too awkward. If she was going to use a number in the title, better to make it a big round one...

"Loser." Emma scowled at Taylor's empty seat.

Taylor stood at the windowsill, tucking her notebook into her backpack. She opened the window and prepared to climb out. "I'll be back tomorrow morning. Nine AM. Back to the usual time. I'll keep you updated on your families. And..." She looked over the twenty three classmates who were giving her their undivided attention, who were her responsibility and legacy. She swallowed. "I'll do better next time. I promise."

Emma smiled at her own legacy to the world and gave her a farewell wave. "See you tomorrow, Taylor!"

Taylor looked at Emma, raised her hand halfway...then let it fall to her side. The great superhero who had stalled Leviathan for minutes, who fought alongisde the Triumvirate, couldn't bring herself to wave back to her old best friend. A gesture of equality, reciprocation, trust, that she didn't feel either one of them was worthy of.

Not yet, anyway.

That was okay. They could take it slow. They had all the time in the world.

Emma turned to page 244 of her book.


End file.
